In
Le Coran par lui-même, Anne-Sylvie Boisliveau provides a ground-breaking analysis of the way the Qurʾān is the architect of its own image. Far from being a flat text, the Qurʾān uses carefully chosen vocabulary, rhetorical tools and argumentation to direct the image that listeners or readers will then have in mind. A close analysis of its self-referential vocabulary shows that the Qurʾān describes itself as a Scripture “in a Judeo-Christian style” which communicative function is stressed. By a triple discourse (on divine actions, on previous Scriptures such as the Bible and on prophethood), the Qurʾān grants itself the monopoly of divine authority through revelation and pushes the listener/reader into a decisive submission.

Anne-Sylvie Boisliveau, Ph.D. (2010), Aix-Marseille University, France, is researcher at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. She studied Arabic and Islam in France, Egypt and Syria, and has specialized on the qurʾānic text and on early Islam.